Wii Fit gets Body Check Channel in Japan

By Robert Purchese Published 28 January, 2009

Tracks data, offers on-going health advice.

Nintendo is making a Wii Fit Body Check Channel that will correlate player data (and DS pedometer data) and offer ongoing health and fitness advice, while also providing medical professionals with valuable research data.

The first companies on board are Japanese giants NEC, Panasonic and Hitachi, according to Andriasang (spotted by VG247), and each will use the data in different ways.

NEC will use the Wii Fit Body Check Channel to get employees and their families fit and healthy; Panasonic will cater to insurance companies and health organisations; and Hitachi has a secret internal project in testing.

NEC and Panasonic hope to go live from April, while Hitachi will roll out sometime next month if everything goes well.

Nintendo told Eurogamer there were "no current plans" to offer the Wii Fit Body Check Channel across Europe.

The news comes as Wii Fit enjoys a second week atop the UK All-Formats chart, despite having launched back in April 2008.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (12) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    Nintendo told Eurogamer there were "no current plans" to offer the Wii Fit Body Check Channel across Europe, then added "Because we hate you, and would like to see you all dead. That's it, go away and die you fetid bags of scum.", then proceeded to ignore the money made from the region. As ever.
    Edited by 1 at 28/01/09 @ 09:45

  • robg #2 3 years ago

    "Panasonic will cater to insurance companies and health organisations"

    So my Wii Fit score would influence my insurance?

    That isn't scary. At all.

  • DFawkes #3 3 years ago

    Indeed, I bet it'll be Animal Crossing branded. Lyle will pop up and start saying "Oh, you're in trouble. Big. HUGE! You need insurance my friend. Could be dead in a week."

    If you don't buy insurance directly, he'll go on about you bustin' his chops, and start deleting your saves.

  • afray #4 3 years ago

    My wii fit manual has a screen shot of the Wii main screen, with an obviously-wii-fit branded channel in the slot below the disk channel. Couldn't find any mention of a dedicated channel in the manual - maybe this is it?

  • spekkeh #5 3 years ago

    Er. You can create a standalone wii fit channel with the game already. So you can do your body check without having to insert the dvd.

  • robson_wii #6 3 years ago

    ^^^ Beat me to it...

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #7 3 years ago

    @ robg

    In the UK you can get discounted health insurance through the Pru if you go to the gym regularly.

    Big Brother is watching you... exercise!

  • robg #8 3 years ago

    You can get health insurance?

  • afray #9 3 years ago

    spekkeh - how do you install that? ONly fiddled with the game for a few minutes but there was nothing obvious and the manual didn't seem to mention it.

  • Dan234 #10 3 years ago

    Go to settings, it's called install channel.

  • Doctor_What #11 3 years ago

    It's in the Wii Fit settings. Have a browse, it's in there somewhere. It took us a while to find it too. You would think that they would make it a bit easier to find!

  • afray #12 3 years ago

    cheers guys